Fairies and Wolfe

Lee Berman · 29 Mar 2012, 06:19 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:19:07 -0400
Subject: (urth) Fairies and Wolfe
Message-ID: <SNT123-W20886ECA8EAD437D78DFF0CF480 at phx.gbl>

>Jeff Wilson: Eh? Don't fairies generally have strictures they constitutionally 
>can't break, like being unable to go back on their word, can't break 
 >the seal of the cross, etc? While humans are free to lie, betray, 
>blaspheme, etc, and repent at leisure?

>David Stockhoff: That's more the sense I get, yes.

Oh I meant to respond to Jeff's cogent comment. I would certainly agree that fairies

seem to be bound by rules. But far fewer rules than humans. I almost get the sense

they are given these rules to keep them interesting characters. Even Superman had to

have his kryptonite. Fairies wouldn't be of much fun or interest if they had full

license to run amok in any way they pleased.

In consideration of Jeff's comment, I am thinking David's remark that robots and fairies

are more alike than humans is because both are solely rule governed. Jeff's examples 

illustrate that only humans have the freedom to break our rules and thus only humans can

be said to be guided by a moral compass rather than programming or laws of the super-

natural.

Anyway, I still get a sense that humans occupy one sort of middle ground. A robot or

computer's every action is guided by written rules (superego?). A fairy does whatever

it wants, its actions merely constrained or circumscribed by a few rules (id?). Humans

(ego?) seem to be a balance and/or compromise between the two.

>Allan Anderson: I remember this from Elijah Baley in _The Caves of Steel_,
>before he became a stinking robo-sympathizer. Excellent points. I remember
>wondering if Asimov was making a coherent point with that, or just
>appropriating a term for its emotional impact.

I remember it too. It recreated a traumatic event from my childhood when my beloved, 

revered and usually amiable grandfather got into a verbal conflict with a Latino parking 

attendant and repeatedly called him "boy!" despite him being a grown man and visibly upset 

by the dispute. I asked about it and it was explained that that is simply how you have to 

talk to such people.

But Elijah Bailey's redemption in his continually growing respect for robots (and their

humanity) gave me hope for my old grandpa. (plus, the patient, serene, introspective, 

self-sacrificing robot Daneel Olivaw remains one of my favorite characters in SF).

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